Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
|genre = Action-adventure, third-person shooter |modes = Single-player, multiplayer |ratings = |platforms = PlayStation 3 |media = Blu-ray Disc |input = Gamepad |walk = Uncharted 2 Walkthrough }} Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3. It is the sequel to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. The game follows Nathan Drake as he tries to find another treasure. Gameplay Uncharted 2 will feature new gameplay mechanics, such as stealth action segments, and will change the climbing mechanic to allow free movement over walls. Gameplay from Drake's Fortune also returns, such as platforming, vehicle segments, and a cover system. Multiplayer Uncharted 2 will feature both competitive and co-operative multiplayer. The co-op multiplayer will allow a maximum of three players to take the roles of Nathan, Sully, and Chloe and will feature missions involving gunfights, platforming, and teamwork-based objectives. Players will also need to assist their comrades should they become critically injured or be grabbed by an enemy. The competitive multiplayer will allow a maximum of ten players to play against each other. Four competitive modes have been revealed, 'Deathmatch', 'Plunder', 'Elimination', and 'Chain Reaction'. Deathmatch features two teams of five, with one team acting as 'heroes' and the other as 'villains'. Players will be able to choose their own appropriate character models (such as Nathan, Sully, Elena and new characters Tenzin and Chloe for the 'heroes' team). Players will also be able to select two Boost abilities which will assist them in the matches. Plunder is similar to the traditional capture the flag game mode, and sees each team attempt to capture the treasure from a central point in the map and return it to their base; the player carrying the treasure is slowed down a great deal, and may also choose to hurl the treasure away at any point, in order to keep it out of reach of the enemy, or to pass it to a teammate. 'Elimination' has two teams of five players against each other with the objective of killing everyone on the other team. Eliminate out the other guys three out of five times, and the team still standing wins. 'Chain Reaction' has the player capturing flags, but the player must do them in a specific order - one team works out from their base needing to capture 1 through 5 while the other team starts out from their home and needs to snag 5 through 1. 'Gold Rush' is a cooperative mode of play where 2-3 players must team up to get a treasure, randomly spawned on the map, and take it back to their base much like Plunder. However, AI enemies will try to stop the players from returning the treasure. If a player goes down and is not revived before the timer goes out, they will not come back until the next round. In each consecutive round the enemies will become tougher to defeat. Due to the reduction of the quality of the game's visuals if a split-screen multiplayer were to be included, Naughty Dog has stated there will be no offline multiplayer for the time being. Plot Uncharted 2 picks up a couple of years after the events of Drake's Fortune. Similar to the previous story, Nathan Drake’s (voiced by Nolan North) new adventure revolves around an unsolved historical mystery – this time surrounding Marco Polo and his doomed voyage home from China in 1292. After spending almost 20 years in the court of the emperor Kublai Khan, Marco Polo departed with 14 ships and over 600 passengers and crew – but when he arrived at his destination a year and a half later, only one ship remained, and only 18 of the passengers had survived. Although Marco Polo described almost every other aspect of his journeys in minute detail, he never revealed what happened to the ships that were lost. at an enemy armed with a ballistic shield.]] Nathan, attracted by the potential treasure to be found and inspired by the intrigue around this historical mystery, embarks on a quest to find Marco Polo’s lost fleet. But he soon discovers that Marco Polo was hiding a much greater secret – he had gone on a secret expedition on behalf of the emperor to find the mythical kingdom of Shambhala, otherwise known as Shangri-La, and to recover the legendary Cintamani Stone, the wish-fulfilling jewel of Buddhist mythology. The stone is described by Marco Polo as a massive raw sapphire which, if it truly exists, would be worth billions of dollars today. These discoveries set Nathan on a new course, following Marco Polo’s 700-year-old trail through a diverse range of exotic environments to find out if the lost city of Shambhala, rumored to lie deep in the Himalayas, really exists. Following him on his quest will be Chloe Frazer (Claudia Black). Elena (Emily Rose) and Sully (Richard McGonagle) from the first game will appear in the sequel and a new character named Jeff (Gregory Myhre) will be introduced as Elena's camera man. Robin Atkin Downes, who voiced Atoq Navarro in the first Uncharted, will return as Tenzin, Nate's "guide for the Cintamani Stone and the mythical city of Shambala" who knows little English. Also assisting Nathan on his journey this time will be an elderly man named Karl Schafer (Rene Auberjonois) who possesses knowledge of the stone and Harry Flynn (Steve Valentine), an old business associate of Nathan and Chloe. They are trying to recover the stone before a psychopathic war criminal named Zorin Lazarevic (Graham McTavish). The story starts with a wounded Nate waking up to find himself in a train hanging off a cliff. He climbs to safety and recovers a Phurba and finds a place to rest. He has a flashback to four months before where he is approached by his old friend Harry Flynn and his girlfriend (and Nate's old flame) Chloe Frazer. They tell him that Flynn's client, Zoran Lazarevic, wants them to retrieve an oil lamp from a museum. Nate at first refuses but accepts once he learns that it holds the answer to what happened to Marco Polo's lost fleet. Another flashback reveals that Nate and Chloe are planning to run away together after they find the treasure and Flynn must not know. In Istanbul, Turkey Nate and Flynn break into the museum and after getting past the guards find the lamp and smash it open to find a blank map and some resin. Nate burns the resin and the map lights up to reveal a hidden letter from Polo. Nate discovers that his fleet was hit by a tsunami and crashed on the west coast of Borneo and that they carried the Cintamani Stone from Shamballah. As they prepare to leave, Flynn pulls out a gun and shoots one of the glass cases setting off the alarms. Flynn holds Nate at gunpoint as the guards show up, and leaves Nate to the guards. Nate attempts to escape but is captured. Three months later, his friend Victor "Sully" Sullivan shows up tells him that he was able to bail Nate out with some money. Chloe walks in and Nate tells Sully to kick her out. Chloe tells him she had nothing to do with Flynn's double-cross, which he ignores. Sully tells Nate that Lazarevic has found the lost fleet and Nate decides to go after the stone. In Borneo, Nate and Sully find Lazarevic's camp and watch him kill one of his soldiers for stealing from a dig site. Nate and Sully set off some explosive charges that Chloe set around the camp as a diversion. Nate discovers, through Marco Polo's letters that Lazarevic has attained, that Polo's men escaped the tsunami up to a nearby mountain, and that they never removed the Cintamani Stone from Shamballah. They meet up with Chloe at the mountain and find Polo's men, all dead with their teeth black. Nate lights up some more resin and follows a blood trail to a box containing the Phurba and another letter from Polo saying that another clue is in a temple in Kathmandu, Nepal. Chloe then double crosses and leads Flynn to them, who takes the map and sends Nate and Sully to Lazarevic. As two guards take Sully and Nate away, Chloe kills them and gives Nate the Phurba and tells him to meet her in Nepal. Sully and Nate run from Flynn's guards and come to a cliff overlooking the ocean. With no other choice they jump but not before Sully tells Nate he's not going to Nepal. In Nepal, Nate finds a city divided by civil war as Lazarevic looks for the temple. He is attacked by a jeep full of soldiers and fights his way through the streets till he meets up with Chloe. Nate discovers that one of the symbols on the Phurba will be the same as on the temple they're looking for. They then head to the roof of a hotel, the tallest building in the city, only to find the right temple is in the middle of Lazarevic's camp. While on the roof, a helicopter is alerted to their position. After nearly being killed in a collapsing building, Nate manages to take it down but gets separated from Chloe. As he goes down an alley he hears voices. He turns around the corner to find Elena Fisher and her cameraman Jeff who are tracking down Lazarevic in hopes of finding a good story. Chloe shows up and finds that Elena and Nate were once a couple and pokes fun at Nate before telling him they have to go. Nate tells her that Elena and Jeff are coming with them which both Chloe and Elena protest until a second helicopter shows up. They eventually reach the temple and discover that the stone and Shamballah are in the Himalayas. Meanwhile Jeff is shot by one of Lazarevic's men and Nate, Elena, and Chloe try to get him to safety in spite of Chloe's protests. They reach a dead end and Chloe pulls a gun on Nate and Elena as Flynn and Lazarevic show up. Flynn sends Chloe to a train as Lazarevic shoots Jeff. Lazarevic tells Nate he will kill Elena if he doesn't tell him where the stone is. Flynn finds the map and Lazarevic takes the Phurba and gives it to his Lieutenant, Draza. They then head for the train yard while Flynn is left to kill Nate and Elena, who punches Flynn before escaping. Elena asks what Nate will do and he decides to head to the train to go after Chloe. Elena dislikes the plan but decides to help him. Nate is able to make it to the train yard by smashing a decommissioned train car through the repair warehouse doors. However he is soon pinned down by mini-gun fire and the train heads off to the mountains. Luckily, Elena arrives with a jeep and helps Nate catch up with the speeding locomotive; he jumps on to one of the back cars just in the nick of time. Nate then begins to head to the front of the train, on his way he encounters Draza, who nearly kills him until Chloe arrives and shoots Draza dead. She then tells Nate to leave. Angered, Nate begins to yell at her only to be shot in the stomach by Flynn. Nate, with no other option, shoots a pile of propane tanks killing Flynn's men, but sends Nate's half of the train towards the cliff. Back to the beginning, Nate travels through the snow storm but falls unconscious. He then wakes up in a Tibetan village after he was saved by a villager named Tenzin. Tenzin brings him to Elena (who followed the tracks to the wreckage) and the village elder, a 90-year-old German named Karl Schafer. Schafer tells Nate that the Phurba is the key to the gateway of Shamballah, though Nate, shaken and upset over Chloe and Flynn, tells Schafer he's done being a hero and is giving up. Schafer reveals that if Lazarevic gets the stone, no one can stop him. He then sends Nate and Tenzin to find the remains of the men in his expedition, who were looking for Shamballah 70 years earlier. In the ice caves Nate and Tenzin discover that Schafer's men were Schutzstaffel Nazis and that he killed them to protect the world from the power of the stone. They also discover demonic monsters that haunt the caves. As they escape, they learn that Lazarevic has attacked Tenzin's village and kidnapped Schafer. Nate and Tenzin defeat Lazarevic's men and a tank and save the village from total destruction. He and Elena then head after Schafer. After destroying half of Lazaerevic's convoy, Nate & Elena's truck is knocked over a cliff; they barely escape alive. They then see, off in the distance, the monastery in the mountains that holds the secret entrance to Shamballah. Elena and Nate fight their way through the many buildings looking for Schafer, only to find him on the brink of death after Lazarevic took the Phurba and beat him for information. Before dying, Schafer tells Nate that he must destroy the Cintamani Stone, and to believe. Nate and Elena split up as Nate goes after the Phurba. He finds Chloe with it and she willingly gives it to him after he promises to take Lazarevic down. Nate and Elena find the secret passage to Shamballah but soon Lazarevic corners them and threatens to kill both Elena and Chloe if Nate doesn't open the gate. He opens it and they are soon attacked by the monsters from the ice caves. Lazarevic kills the monsters and discovers that they are Guardians of Shamballah, dressed like monsters to scare off anyone who comes near the city. As they enter Shamballah, Lazarevic prepares to kill both Elena and Nate and just before he pulls the trigger, more Guardians show up and Nate, Elena and Chloe escape together. They get to the temple holding the stone first, only for Nate to find out that Polo had it all wrong, that the stone wasn't a giant sapphire but a giant stone of amber made from resin. They find that the sap of resin came from a giant Tree of Life that Lazarevic is entering. Just as they prepare to go after him a wounded Flynn appears. Elena tries to help him but he tells her that Lazarevic left them a gift, a grenade with the pin missing. Flynn sets the bomb off, killing himself and nearly killing Elena. Chloe and Nate help her to the gate and Nate tells Chloe to get her as far away from here as she can. Nate then heads to the tree to stop Lazarevic. Nate finds Lazarevic drinking the sap which heals his scars; Nate and him get into a fight and he defeats Lazarevic. Lazarevic tells Nate that they are the same and Nate should kill him. Nate backs down and leaves Lazarevic to the Guardians, who begin to beat him to death like apes. Nate, Chloe and Elena get out of the city as the resin begins to destroy Shamballah. Back at the monastery, Elena begins to lose consciousness as Nate puts her down and begs for her to hang on a little longer. Back at the Tibetian village, Tenzin and Nate stand before a grave and say a prayer. Chloe walks over and asks if Nate loves Elena. He tells her yes and Chloe joyfully tells him to tell Elena and be with her as Sully walks a healed Elena down the stairs. Chloe and Nate share a goodbye and he goes over to Elena and Sully. Nate tells Sully that the Cintimani Stone was only a metaphor, nothing more. Sully then walks off, but not before asking which way Chloe went. Elena and Nate walk over to Schafer's grave and they pay their respects. Elena tells Nate that he did good and that Schafer would have approved. The game ends with Elena asking Nate where they go from here, Nate answers back "I don't know," he and Elena then kiss, "I haven't thought that far ahead." They both then walk over to the edge of a cliff and watch the sun set behind the mountains. Development First revealed by Game Informer in December 2008, the first teaser trailer was released on December 1, 2008 that featured Drake in a snowstorm reaching for a dagger. Lead character artist Richard Diamant remarked that the trailer was rendered in real-time, using the game's engine. A second teaser trailer was released soon after showing a badly wounded Nathan stuck in the remains of a wrecked train hanging precariously over a cliff. Uncharted 2 will feature online multiplayer, the beta phase of which was playable by those who bought early copies of the game 'Infamous. The beta was also accessible by annual subscribers of the PlayStation Network service, Qore, on June 3, to those who have subscribed to Qore by May 15. The beta codes from Qore began to be sent out on May 8, 2009. Beta codes from Infamous shipped inside the game's packaging on May 26, 2009. It was announced that Uncharted 2 would be released on October 13, 2009. A multiplayer demo is slated for public release on September 30, but people who pre-order from GameStop will receive first access to a multiplayer beta on September 15. In its product listing for Uncharted 2, online retailer Play.com offered access to the same multiplayer beta to those in the UK who pre-ordered the title from its website. According to the listing, the multiplayer will take place between September 15 and October 12. Details were announced the demo will have two co-operative modes, four multiplayer modes with two new maps, Cinema mode and Twitter support where any special accomplishments made on the game will be shown on the player's Twitter page. On July 27, Naughty Dog co-president Christophe Balestra revealed through a Twitter post that the game would not require installation to the PlayStation 3's hard drive. Graphics and technology Naughty Dog is aiming to maximize the utilization of the Cell's SPUs, as their estimates for utilization in the first Uncharted were only around 30%. As a result, the game is expected to have more realistic environments and animations. Uncharted 2 will be using Naughty Dog Game Engine 2.0, a revamped and optimized version of the original engine that has allowed the game to have real-time moving environments, more realistic textures, and animations. The setting of Kathmandu in the game has been praised as "photo-realistic". On August 26, 2009 it was revealed that Uncharted 2 will be using between 90 to 100% of the Cell's processor and uses 25GB of a single Blu-ray Disc. In the same interview, it was asked if the game could run on Microsoft's Xbox 360 hardware in which the response was "never" due to the size of the DVD format discs. In an interview, Christophe Balestra pointed out how important it is to ship every system with a hard drive. "The fact that every PS3 has a hard drive is huge for us." He went on to describe how the game takes advantage of Sony's offerings. "It's the combination of Blu-ray and hard drive. You can play the entire game without loading. We don't require an install. We're doing all the post-processing effects on the SPUs Synergistic Processing Units. The quality of the depth of field we have, you can't do that on the Xbox 360." Fortune Hunter edition Naughty Dog’s creative director, Amy Hennig, revealed that they will be releasing a special Fortune Hunter edition of Uncharted 2.The Fortune Hunter edition contains the game, a replica of the Phurba Dagger artifact and stand, an art book, and a collector's case autographed by Naughty Dog. It is also said to include a "host of downloads." SCEA marketing manager, Asad Qizilbash, told readers of the PlayStation Blog that the limited edition giveaways will take place on that blog, PlayStation Home, the game's multiplayer demo, and a few other unnamed places. Qizilbash also mentioned that only residents in the US are eligible to win. Only 200 copies will be released. Reception | OPMUK = 10/10 | EuroG = 10/10 | GSpot = 9.5/10 | GT = 9.3/10 http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-uncharted-2/57258 | GamePro = | 1UP = A+ | CVG = 10/10 | VG = 9/10 | G4 = 5/5 |Edge = 9/10 | GSpy = | OPMAU = 10/10 | GI = 10/10 |rev1 = PSM3 (France) |rev1Score = 21/20 | SPOnG = 96/100 |compilation = yes | |MC = 96/100 (64 reviews) |GR = 96.13% (32 reviews) |GMS = 9.5/10 (54 reviews) }} Uncharted 2 has received universal critical acclaim with a Metacritic score of 96 out of 100, a GameRankings score of 96.13%, and a GameStats score of 9.5 out of 10. The first publication to review Uncharted 2 was the French edition of PSM3. In their review, they called the game "Long, visually stunning, deep and explosive, Uncharted 2 combines all the qualities you can find in a videogame, and more! A new milestone has been reached in the videogame history." The magazine awarded the game its first ever, 21/20. The second review was by PlayStation: The Official Magazine, which awarded the game a perfect score. In their review, they stated, "Forget Game of The Year. This is one of the greatest games of all time!". The UK edition of the magazine also gave the game a perfect score. IGN gave the game a 9.5 out of 10, saying "No, Uncharted 2 is not perfect, but it's closer than pretty much any other game out there these days." GameSpot gave 9.5/10 saying "Uncharted 2 is a complete game that is completely awesome." Gamesradar gave it 10/10, saying "Simply put, Uncharted 2 is a reason to own a PS3." G4 gave the game a 5 out of 5. Adam Sessler remarked Uncharted 2 is the "best single-player game I have ever played", while listing one of the game's cons as "It has an ending". 1UP.com scored it A+, commenting on the game's high quality music and sound and Eurogamer scored the game 10/10 stating that "The attention to detail is beyond compare." PSX Extreme said, "it is without question the best game the genre has seen in a very long time." GameTrailers scored the game 9.3 / 10, saying that "if you own a PS3, you got to have this game." The Guilty Geek said,"The game is everything that the first was but bigger and better," stating it could easily obtain the Game of the Year award. Edge gave a 9/10 saying "Ultimately, no one will disagree that Uncharted 2 is one hell of a ride, and the best PS3 action game to date." Awards At Sony's E3 media briefing, an Uncharted 2 gameplay demo was shown early in the conference. Critics were very impressed with the demo, which led many to believe Uncharted 2 to be a unanimous competitor for "Game of the Year" with Uncharted 2 winning the most E3 awards of any game, according to its website's home page, including: *Game Critics Awards 2009 **Best of Show **Best Console Game **Best Action/Adventure Game *Gamescom 2009 Awards **Best Console Game *IGN E3 2009 Awards **PS3 Game of Show **Best Overall Graphics Technology **Best PS3 Graphics Technology **Best PS3 Action Game **Best PS3 Multiplayer Experience **PS3 Achievement for Technical Excellence *IGN AU E3 2009 Awards **Best Game of E3 *GameSpot E3 2009 Awards **Best Graphics **Best PS3 Game *1Up.com E3 2009 Awards **Game of Show **Best PS3 Game *X-Play E3 2009 Awards **Game of Show **Best PS3 Game *GameSpy E3 2009 **Best PS3 Game *GameTrailers E3 2009 Awards **Best Third-Person Shooter **Best Graphics *GamesRadar E3 2009 Awards **Most Surprisingly Awesome Demo Gallery File:U2 JP cover.jpg|Japanese cover. References External links *[http://www.us.playstation.com/uncharted/U2AT/index.html?skip=1/ Official Uncharted 2 website] Category:Uncharted 2 Category:Uncharted Games